About

BROTHERS REDEVELOPMENT INC.

Since 1971, Brothers Redevelopment Inc. has become synonymous with affordable, safe and accessible housing solutions for Colorado’s low-income, elderly and disabled residents. Nonprofit Brothers has worked with countless supporters and tens of thousands of volunteers to provide a broad spectrum of housing-related services to hundreds of thousands of clients across the state. Brothers promotes, develops and preserves sustainable affordable housing.

Brothers strategizes and innovates to develop alliances, programs and sustainable revenue streams in keeping with its mission of being a compassionate organization that stands in the corner of the state’s most vulnerable residents while educating the general population on critical housing topics.

Brothers, with its array of strong programs, is uniquely equipped to address the region’s housing issues, including the emerging challenges of massive growth and development, affordable housing shortages and an aging population that wants to age in place.

FIVE DECADES OF HISTORY

1970s

From a grassroots movement to a nonprofit agency:

The agency’s first decade served as a time of grassroots philanthropy, with a handful of dedicated staff and board members reaching out to the community to identify and meet basic housing needs for clients.

The roots of Brothers’ cornerstone program — Home Modification and Repair — spring from this early era, when staff leveraged volunteer manpower to repair and refurbish homes in low-income communities. This ability of Brothers to recruit, rally and organize groups of volunteers grew over the years, resulting in millions of dollars of cost savings for our deserving clients.

1980s

Program development:

For Brothers Redevelopment, the 1980s is characterized by the creation of many of the agency’s popular and long-lasting programs — from property management to housing counseling.

During the early 1980s, Brothers made the transition from housing rehabilitation to housing provision with its purchase and redevelopment of Edgewater Plaza — an 84-unit federally subsidized senior housing community situated in a west Denver suburb. By the end of the decade, the agency would add another 150 units of affordable housing available to seniors residing along the Front Range.

The annual Paint-A-Thon, the agency’s signature senior-serving event, also was well-established by early in the decade. Relying on teams of volunteers to paint the homes of low-income seniors, Brothers’ Paint-A-Thon has since mustered more than 133,000 volunteers to paint the houses of more than 7,400 senior and disabled homeowners statewide since its inaugural year of 1978.

The “Me Decade” also saw Brothers launch its award-winning Housing Counseling Department to provide consultation to first-time homebuyers and to homeowners facing foreclosure. The decade’s end witnessed the creation of Brothers Redevelopment’s Neighborhood Caretakers Program—an initiative that would, over time, see the agency and its volunteers coordinate wide-scale repairs in dozens of metro neighborhoods.

1990s

Partnerships are paramount:

Entering its third decade with a host of successful housing programs in place, Brothers earned acclaim alongside new affiliations.

The agency became a sought-after partner of local governments working to address critical housing issues, particularly in the area of neighborhood stabilization. As a result, Brothers saw incredible growth in both the annual Paint-A-Thon and Neighborhood Caretakers initiatives — efforts with the potential to dramatically affect communities. This potential is being realized with the continuing expansion of Brothers’ Home Modification and Repair Department.

Brothers also built and maintained relationships with growing numbers of foundations and other philanthropic organizations that saw the organization as an effective engine for addressing housing affordability and accessibility. These strategic partnerships, which endure thanks to a focus on accountability, enabled Brothers to serve a growing number of low-income clients along the Front Range.

2000s

An era of sustainability:

The organization’s recent history shows strong financial stewardship and sustainability. The agency’s ownership and operation of 13 housing communities with 527 units provides an important revenue stream that substantially covers administrative overhead.

Brothers’ focus on strong fiscal stewardship means that the agency is able to take on new housing challenges. In 2006, the Colorado Division of Housing selected Brothers to manage The Colorado Foreclosure Hotline and its network of some 26 housing counseling agencies across the state — an effort that brought the organization unprecedented acclaim along with local, national and international media attention.

2010s

A time of innovation:

In 2014, Brothers created the state’s one-of-kind housing resource, Colorado Housing Connects (1-844-926-6632), a comprehensive housing helpline and website that enables consumers to navigate through all housing concerns.

Through this and other key programming, Brothers is recognized among the region’s leaders as a resource to address our most critical housing challenges.

In 2017, Brothers launched its Aging In Place initiative, coordinating an impressive array of services and resources for seniors that complement our housing solutions. With its Senior Services Coordination program, Brothers helps older Colorado find and arrange for everything from healthy food to recreation and transportation, all neatly packaged in one-stop “shopping” at Brothers — at no charge to clients.

In 2018, Brothers broke ground on Paris Family Apartments in Aurora to expand its affordable housing communities.

Also in 2018, Brothers formed a strategic new partnership with members of a historic neighborhood facing displacement and crisis amid massive development forces. In joining with residents of the Globevile Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods and their GES Coalition, along with a nonprofit land trust, Brothers helped create the GES Affordable Housing Collaborative to preserve affordable housing and save the community’s identity and social fabric. In doing so, Brothers won a $2 million grant from the Colorado Department of Transportation Central 70 Project, the largest grant in the nonprofit’s history — and hailed by city officials as the single biggest investment in a Denver neighborhood.